Harsh World and Other Poems

Angel Gonzalez, Donald D. Walsh

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9780691013336
  9780691643908
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400869169
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Although seven volumes of his poetry are available in Spanish, the work of Ángel González has not been widely translated into English. This bilingual edition, introduced by the poet, presents selections from Palabra sobre palabra (Word upon Word), his definitive collection. Included are poems from Grado elemental (Elementary Grade), which won the Antonio Machado Prize for Poetry.

Born in Oviedo, Spain in 1925, Ángel González published his first book in 1956 to immediate acclaim. His poetry is characterized by striking imagery and deeply personal statement that is often sad and sardonic.

Of his work González writes, "'Experience,' 'reality', and 'preciseness of expression' are probably...the boundaries that limit the space, on a horizontal plane, in which my poetic intentions move. Upon this plane, trying to add another dimension, I attempt to erect my creative and imaginative possibilities....In some of these poems, written and published in Spain, the result of a determined desire to bear witness will have to be sought not in what the words say but in what they imply, in the spaces of shadow, of silence of anger, or of helplessness that they discover or uncover."

Originally published in 1977.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Harsh World
• Birthday
• That's Not Anything
• I'm Lacking One Word
• Death in the Evening
• Why Look?
• You All Seem Happy
• Farewell
• Through Here a River Passes
• Autumn Sent
• Rain upon the Snow in the Spring
• Dogs Against the Moon
• You Rest Your Hand
• Birds
• They Are the Seagulls, My Love
• Miracle of Light
• Woods
• Another Time Will Come
• The Defeated One
• I Myself
• An Astonishing World
• If You Composed
• Hope
• Memory
• Crisis
• I Know What It's Like to Wait
• Yesterday
• Sunday
• Winter
• Love's Birthday
• December
• Beggar
• Letter Without Farewell
• Symbol
• Brief Narrative
• Intermission
• Enormous Bird
• Broken Stone
• Wait for It to Come
• Summer in the Slums
• Proof
• That Is Enough for Me
• Useless Words
• Inventory of Places Propitious for Love
• Square with Towers and Palaces
• Preamble to Silence
• Evening Waltz
• Tango of the Dawn
• Song to Sing a Song
• It's Hopeless
• Words to Be Sung on a Sunday
• Zero City
• First Evocation
• Whatever You Want
• It Was Never the Same Again
• The Uses of Nostalgia
• Funeral Quintet for Graveyard Strings and Country Piano
• Magic Realism
• Science as Affliction